One of the first photographs of a sediment trap sample shows cylindrical fecal pellets and other aggregates, planktonic tests (round white objects), transparent snail-like pteropod shells, radiolarians, and diatoms. The first deep-sea sediment trap was recovered on February 20, 1977, from 5,367 meters on the Sohm Abyssal Plain in the Sargasso Sea. As Sus Honjo and colleagues viewed the samples under a microscope, they confirmed a theory and began to solve the mystery of how benthic animals receive nourishment from surface waters in "packages" that descend through the water column. (Photo by Susumu Honjo, WHOI)
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